Free For All of Her Life by Heather Graham Page B

irritated than frightened by the call. He’d started to tell the caller just what to do with himself when a loud click in his ear let him know that whoever it was had gone.
    Though he’d remained more annoyed than anything else, he’d been a little disturbed. That evening he’d called the phone company and arranged to have caller identification added to his home phones. It had been a hoax, he was sure, but it didn’t hurt to know who was playing games.
    He’d been at a local restaurant when the next call had come. It had been even stranger. “Let the dead stay buried.”
    “Who the hell is this?” he’d demanded.
    “Let the dead stay buried. Do you know what happens when the dead come back to life? They take others with them.”
    This time Jordan did tell the caller what he could do; then he hung up angrily.
    But the calls had gotten to him.
    He’d stayed up nights on end, trying to go back, trying to think, trying to remember. He’d thought maybe he should just drop everything. But then he’d gotten even angrier, when he’d realized that he’d lost his marriage because there had been something more to Keith’s death than they had known, and he’d decided, not to let his friend lie in the earth unavenged.
    The third call had come to the studio. And it had been different. The voice had been very soft, almost certainly feminine, but then again, it was so hard to tell. A different voice? Or just the same voice camouflaged? He didn’t know.
    The message was a different one, at the very least.
    “The truth is what will set you free, right? The truth has to come out. Or someone else might be in danger. Remember the smell of the fire, of the burning... flesh? Jordan, you’re the only one who can do something.”
    Again a click.
    That night, he’d called Mickey Dean, a friend on the Metro-Dade police force. He and Mickey had sat in Jordan’s poolroom that night, reflecting on the entire affair over a few too many Buds. “Jordan, there’s not much anyone can do about phone threats like that. It might be a gag—”
    “But, Mickey, something was wrong back then. I did see a figure enter the guest house before it went up in flames.”
    “Anyone might have been with him. And whoever it was, was afraid to admit it after he died—obviously. Do you seriously think Keith was murdered? The coroner’s report stated that he’d taken enough barbiturates to knock him out cold, that he died of smoke inhalation before the fire ever touched him. And the fire was very definitely caused by that stinking pipe he was smoking.”
    “Even if the pipe caused the fire, could it have made the flames grow so quickly?”
    “There was no sign of arson. You and I went over all the reports at the time.”
    “I knew something was wrong.”
    “Jordan, Keith’s death was probably a tragic accident, just what the hearing determined it to be. And these calls might be hoaxes. Whoever is calling you now might be the worst kind of publicity hound.”
    “And he—or she—might not be.”
    “But, Jordan, the point is, there’s nothing anyone can do about a few phone calls. You know that. Christ! We get ex-husbands and boyfriends threatening ex-wives and lovers on a daily basis. Sometimes, when there has been a death threat, we can get a restraining order. Sometimes, there’s nothing we can do. And even with a restraining, sometimes the ex blows away the wife or lover. We all know we should have been able to stop it somehow. But the best I can do for you is report these calls. There’s no manpower to do anything about them. You’re in a county with one of the highest crime rates in the country, and you know a lot about the workings of a police force because you’ve been listening to me talk for years.”
    Jordan was well aware that cops didn’t have time to worry about a few threatening phone calls—or his own suspicion that a case closed nearly ten years ago was no accident but a murder. All the right procedures had been followed